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Tag Archive: Broadening Participation

Upcoming BPC Community Forum: Exploring BPCnet’s New Features and Resources

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Join us on Friday, January 10, 2025, at noon ET for the next BPCnet.org BPC Community Forum, hosted by the CRA’s Center for Evaluating the Research Pipeline (CERP). This session will focus on the recent redesign of BPCnet.org and highlight its updated features. It will also provide an opportunity for the participants to provide feedback on current and future content on BPCnet.org. 

Register To Attend

Participants will learn how to navigate BPCnet.org and get an overview of the wide range of resources on the website, including tools designed to support the creation and refinement of BPC plans (e.g., guides, templates), research and data related resources, and searchable databases. The forum will also provide an opportunity for attendees to share their experiences with the platform and offer feedback on its functionality.

Registration is required to attend this Zoom event. After registering with your name and email address, you will receive an email confirmation with the Zoom link. 

The live transcript will be turned on for this BPC Community Forum. If you have any accessibility needs, please reach out to bpcinfo@cra.org.

 

This post is brought to you by the CRA’s Center for Evaluating the Research Pipeline (CERP). CERP provides social science research and comparative evaluation for the computing community. Subscribe to the CERP newsletter bulletin by clicking here. Volunteer for Data Buddies by signing up here.

BPCnet.org is Recruiting BPC Plan Consultants

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BPCnet.org is seeking consultants to support academic institutions in crafting BPC Plans for their departments or as part of their NSF proposals. Consultants will primarily work with faculty and professional staff to draft and revise Departmental and Project BPC Plans under the NSF CISE guidelines, using rubrics and sample plans.

The consultation process includes virtual meetings with departments, providing feedback on drafts, and using a pre-established checklist and criteria for verifying Departmental BPC Plans. Consultants have flexible schedules, with a maximum of 10 hours of time commitment per month, and their time is compensated hourly. Consultants will also be invited to participate in BPC Plan Workshops and virtual Working Sessions as their schedules permit.

For more information about this opportunity and how to apply, visit the BPCnet.org blog post here. If you have any questions or would like to learn more about the BPC Plan Consultancy, please contact bpcinfo@cra.org.

Upcoming BPC Forum on Identifying and Removing Institutional Barriers to BPC: The CIC’s 10 recommended systemic sustainable interventions and their BPC impact.

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Join us for the next BPCnet.org BPC Community Forum on Friday, November 1st, at noon EST for a discussion led by Carla Brodley and Catherine Gill of the Center for Inclusive Computing (CIC) on effective ways to overcome institutional barriers found in undergraduate computing programs. 

Register To Attend

The Center for Inclusive Computing partners with universities to identify and remove the—often unintentional—barriers that prevent students from discovering and thriving in computing education. To remove these barriers, CIC Partner Schools implement evidence-based, systemic, and sustainable interventions that don’t require ongoing funding. The CIC works in partnership with 100+ universities across the country to ensure that students of any intersectional demographic identity can discover, thrive, and persist in computing. 

In this talk, the CIC will explore the most common institutional barriers found in undergraduate computing programs and the concrete actions that can be taken to remove these barriers such as handling the distribution of prior computing experience in the intro sequence, rethinking the placement of math requirements, creating interdisciplinary computing BS/BA degrees, ensuring that multi-section courses use common assessment and more. The CIC will present results for the 21 partner schools who have had 2+ years to implement changes. 

We look forward to sharing this information with the BPC community and hope to receive feedback on what systemic interventions might be missing from this list. 

Registration is required to attend this Zoom event. After registering with your name and email address, you will receive an email confirmation with the Zoom link. 

The live transcript will be turned on for this BPC Community Forum. If you have any accessibility needs, please reach out to bpcinfo@cra.org.

 

This post is brought to you by the CRA’s Center for Evaluating the Research Pipeline (CERP). CERP provides social science research and comparative evaluation for the computing community. Subscribe to the CERP newsletter bulletin by clicking here. Volunteer for Data Buddies by signing up here.

Applications Are Open for the 2023 Departmental BPC Plan Workshop: March 19 Deadline

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Applications are now open for the 2023 Departmental Broadening Participation in Computing (BPC) Plan Workshop. This year’s workshop will be held in Atlanta, GA from May 30th– June 1st in collaboration with Morehouse College. In this workshop, departments will have the opportunity to learn more about BPC efforts from the National Science Foundation (NSF), how to create a Departmental BPC Plan, and how to best support faculty PIs submitting NSF proposals that require a BPC Plan. Consultants from BPCnet.org will be available to answer questions and provide real-time feedback about your department’s BPC Plan during the workshop.

 

Please check out the workshop website for more information about the workshop.

 

Eligibility

This workshop is open to all computing department faculty and administrators developing Departmental BPC Plans. We highly recommend (but do not require) that each department participates in the workshop in teams of 2-3. For each department, we ask that at least one participant represent the leadership (e.g., department heads, deans, etc.) at the workshop. We also encourage non-academic staff, research institute personnel, Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion (DEI) professionals, and leaders from other broadening participation-related organizations to attend. Registrants do not need to have prior experience developing Departmental BPC Plans. Each department may send up to three representatives to attend.

 

Funding

This workshop is funded by the NSF. Attendees will be reimbursed for their travel expenses in accordance with CRA’s Travel Policy. 

 

Application

Each department only needs to submit one application. The person who completes the application on behalf of the department will be asked to provide information on the other representatives (e.g., name, email). Click here to complete and submit your application by midnight Sunday, March 19th.

 

If you have any questions regarding the workshop, please reach out to bpcinfo@cra.org.

 

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CSGrad4US: Second Year Call for NSF Fellowship Opportunity for CS Bachelor’s/Master’s Degree Holders to Return for PhD

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NSFThis post was originally published in CRA Bulletin on April 4, 2022 here.

The National Science Foundation (NSF) Computer and Information Science and Engineering (CISE) Directorate has announced the second year of the CSGrad4US Graduate Fellowship program.

Goal and Motivation To increase the number of diverse, domestic graduate students pursuing research and innovation careers in the CISE fields. The fellowship program, which will provide 3-year fellowship opportunities for new Ph.D. students in the computing disciplines, was released in response to the increased demand for people with a Ph.D. in CISE fields, the continued decrease of domestic students pursuing research and completing a Ph.D., and the overall small number of bachelor’s degree recipients in CS pursuing graduate school. In particular, the percentage of domestic Ph.D. students in Computer Science graduating has decreased from 69% in 1985 to 37% in 2018 [1].

NSF seeks candidates from a broad array of backgrounds and strongly encourages women, African Americans, Hispanics, American Indians, Alaska Natives, Native Hawaiians, Native Pacific Islanders, and persons with disabilities to apply.

Benefits

  • A year-long preparation program, organized by CRA-E and CRA-WP, in which individuals selected for the Fellowship will receive mentoring support in identifying a graduate program, finding a research mentor, and applying to graduate programs; during this year, the individuals will also have opportunities to form a network with one another and with faculty advisors;
  • For those who enroll in an accredited doctoral degree-granting program at an institution of higher education having a campus located in the United States, its territories or possessions, or the Commonwealth of Puerto Rico, an annual stipend of $34,000 for three years out of five; and

  • Cost-of-education allowance of $12,000 per year for the three years noted above to the institution of higher education.

Timeline and Eligibility
The 2022 solicitation has expanded the eligibility rules. In particular, applicants must have graduated with a bachelor’s degree in a CISE field before June 30, 2021, and can have received an MS degree.  Applications for the CSGrad4US Graduate Fellowship are due June 30, 2022.

Please visit https://www.nsf.gov/cise/CSGrad4US/ for all eligibility criteria and additional details and deadlines.
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[1] Addressing the National Need for Increasing the Domestic Ph.D. Yield in Computer Science. Susanne Hambrusch, Lori Pollock, Ran Libeskind-Hadas, and Christine Alvarado, Quadrennial Paper, CRA, November 2020.

Help us publicize this unique opportunity by…

  • Forwarding this email to your faculty and alums
  • Posting on your Social Media

BPCnet.org is Hiring BPC Plan Consultants

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About BPCnet.org: BPCnet.org, housed within the Computing Research Association (CRA), is a resource for the computing community to learn about Broadening Participation in Computing (BPC) efforts and engage with ongoing initiatives to diversify computing. In that effort, BPCnet.org supports PIs and departments to create BPC Plans that define how they will contribute to broadening participation in computing (BPC) in a meaningful way.

Description: BPCnet.org seeks consultants to support academic institutions to craft BPC Plans for their respective departments. The consultants will primarily work with PIs and departments to help draft and revise meaningful Departmental and Project “Connected and Standalone” BPC Plans (Connected and Standalone) under the NSF CISE guidelines, and with the support of rubrics and sample plans. The consultation process includes virtual meetings with departments,  providing feedback on drafts, and using a pre-established checklist and criteria for verifying Departmental BPC Plans.

Types of Consultants:

  • Provides consultations about Departmental and Project BPC Plans only (virtually meets with departments)
  • Reviews and verifies Departmental BPC Plans only
  • Provides consultations about Departmental and Project BPC Plans, and reviews and verifies Departmental BPC Plans

Time Commitment: Max. 10 hours/ month. BPC Plan consultants have flexible schedules; however, consultants will need to provide their availability for each semester. Consultants will also participate in BPC Plan Workshops and virtual Working Sessions as their schedules permit.

Compensation: Hourly

Experience and Training: BPC Plan consultants are expected to have a prior engagement with BPC through BPC activities in their respective organizations and/or research experience. BPCnet.org staff and Steering Committee will also provide consultants with the appropriate training and continuous guidance needed to review and verify Plans.

Application Process: Applications are accepted on a rolling basis. If you’re interested in becoming a BPC Plan Consultant, please fill out this form. You can expect to hear from BPCnet.org staff about the next steps within a few weeks of submitting your application.

CRA is an equal opportunity employer. If you have any questions or would like to learn more about the BPC Plan Consultancy, please contact us at bpcinfo@cra.org.

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Supplements for BPC Plans

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The following announcement is provided by the National Science Foundation.

PIs with active Medium and Large CISE Core programs awards funded in the last three years (specifically pursuant to solicitations NSF 20-591, 19-589. 18-569, 18-568, and 18-570) are invited to submit supplemental funding requests to engage more members of the CISE research community in significant BPC efforts as part of their projects’ BPC plans. These supplements will increase the participation of individuals underrepresented in the community participation in specific research areas. Supplemental funding requests for an existing BPC plan should either:

  1. extend the reach of current BPC activities that have some evidence of effectiveness to more participants or institutions; or
  2. coordinate and institutionalize BPC activities within a department or similar unit.

The supplemental funding request should also include the following information:

  1. objectives and strategies for the proposed activities along with a timeline;
  2. an evaluation and assessment plan that describes how to measure the outcomes of the proposed activities; and
  3. the results of past BPC activities on this project.

The current approved BPC plan must be uploaded as a Supplementary Document.

Supplemental funding requests must: (a) be less than 20% of the original award amount; and (b) not exceed $200,000. Supplements will not be given if they would require an extension beyond the expiration date of the original grant.

The deadline for submission is January 20, 2022.

BPCnet.org Resource Portal is an initiative of the Computing Research Association (CRA) with support from the National Science Foundation (CNS-1830364, CNS-2032231, and CNS-1940460). Subscribe to the BPCnet.org newsletter & bulletin by clicking here.

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BPC Demonstration Projects

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The following announcement is provided by the National Science Foundation.

PIs with interest in piloting and evaluating programs to broaden participation in computing are encouraged to submit a BPC Demonstration Project (DP). Typical DPs pilot innovative programs that, once fully developed, could be incorporated into the activities of an existing or new BPC Alliance, or otherwise scaled up for widespread impact. Examples include projects proposed by a single institution or those that focus on a single underrepresented community, a single point in the academic pathway, or a single impediment to full participation in computing. Demonstration projects should contribute knowledge to our understanding of effective teaching and learning of computing for students from groups underrepresented in computing.

The deadline for submission is January 20, 2022.

Please refer to the CISE BPC solicitation (NSF 21-571) for more details. Send questions or concerns to cise-bpc@nsf.gov.

BPCnet.org Resource Portal is an initiative of the Computing Research Association (CRA) with support from the National Science Foundation (CNS-1830364, CNS-2032231, and CNS-1940460). Subscribe to the BPCnet.org newsletter & bulletin by clicking here.

BPCnet.org Releases New Tool in the Statistics and Data Hub

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BPCnet.org is happy to announce the newest addition to its Statistics and Data Hub, a resource that brings together sources of publicly available data to support the computer and information sciences and engineering fields. Since its launch in 2020, the Statistics and Data Hub has included several tools for users to download computing-specific data, such as postsecondary computing degrees awarded by institutions and enrollment data at the K-12 level.

Now, users can view and download institution-specific data on postsecondary engineering degrees. In this tool, users can select their state, institution name, and degree type to view a downloadable data table or plot (sourced from U.S. Department of Education Integrated Postsecondary Education Data System (IPEDS)). Data can be further organized by the Classification of Instructional Program (CIP) code, gender, and racial/ethnic identity. Click here to check out the new tool!

These newest updates to the BPCnet.org Statistics and Data Hub were made possible through a new collaboration with the NSF INCLUDES Alliance: Partnerships Launching Underrepresented Students, previously announced in CERP Bulletin.

Do you know of other public data initiatives that should be included on the BPCnet.org Statistics and Data Hub? Contact us to let us know!

Register for This Year’s Final Departmental BPC Plan Working Session

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BPCnet.org will be hosting its last working session for this year on Thursday, November 18th, 2021, from 3:00 PM- 5:00 PM ET. The session will assist participants with updating their existing Departmental BPC Plan or creating a new one to meet the updated National Science Foundation (NSF) Directorate of Computer and Information Sciences and Engineering (CISE) guidelines. You can review the details of the session and register prior to Thursday, November 11th.

 

If you are unable to participate in the working session, we encourage you to schedule a free appointment with our BPC consultants before the December 1st, 2021 – December 22nd, 2021 proposal window deadline for NSF CISE Core Medium projects.

 

Questions about these Departmental BPC Plan Working Sessions should be directed to bpcinfo@cra.org or through our contact form.

 

BPCnet.org has the full announcement about the changes to BPC Plan requirements from NSF.

BPCnet.org Resource Portal is an initiative of the Computing Research Association (CRA) with support from the National Science Foundation (CNS-1830364, CNS-2032231, and CNS-1940460). Subscribe to the BPCnet.org newsletter & bulletin by clicking here.